brainsplotch

...but hey, if everyone else is doing it, why not me? I have been quite affected by Michael Jackson's death, much more than I thought I would be. It really was a shock, which is strange to say since the warning signs have been everywhere for years now. Still, Michael always seemed superhuman, and it somehow doesn't seem possible for him to die. What makes it doubly strange for me is that I literally do not remember a time in my life when Michael Jackson has not been famous. Like so many others, I grew up with his music, and can remember watching the Jackson 5 on the Mike Douglass Show back when I was a kid in the seventies. I had to double check to make sure my memory and reality jibed ("was it REALLY the Mike Douglass Show, or am I confusing it with something else?" As it turns out, according to the Mike Douglass Show web site, the Jackson 5 appeared on the show three times: April 3, 1974; November 12, 1975; and February 8, 1977). I was mesmerized by the young dynamo...

Awhile ago, a friend of mind sent me, via a Facebook message, the "assignment" of comparing and contrasting Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" and R.E.M.'s "It's the End of World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)." This friend is someone I've known since about sixth grade, and we often go back and forth about music and pop culture. Anyway, this is my extemely off-the-cuff reply to his challenge. Thought you might find it fun: Billy Joel's “We Didn’t Start the Fire” is a litany of baby boomer-era cultural touchstones, and in the chorus Billy basically, in typical curmudgeonly Billy Joel style, says, "look, if you're pissed off about how f***ed up things are now, don't look at us (i.e. the boomers), it was already f***ed up when we got here, but we've been trying to make it better, so there!--and you know what, it'll probably continue to be f***ed up after we're dead." Billy Joel is the official apo...